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Early Roman Empire
The '''Early Roman Empire' lasted from about 31 BC until 180 AD. It began with the defeat of Antony and Cleopatra, that left Octavian Caesar Augustus the master of the Roman world. It then ended with the succession to the throne of the Emperor Commodus in 180 AD, that began an era of increasing crisis for the Roman Empire. Though no man is an empire, the nature and government of the Roman Empire were to an astonishing degree the creation of one man of outstanding ability; the Emperor Augustus. The first two centuries of the empire's existence were a period of unprecedented political stability and prosperity known as the Pax Romana. The rulers of the Roman world did not usually live easy lives; of the five Emperors who succeeded Augustus, only one died a natural death. The military was now the ultimate basis of power, and if there was a succession crisis, then the soldiers would decide. This happened in the first great burst of civil war to shake the empire, in the year of the Four Emperors of 69 AD, from which emerged Vespasian. He was the first of an unprecedented series of eight successful or moderately successful emperors. This Golden Age included many emperors considered the greatest who ever ruled ancient Rome, such as Trajan, Hadrian and Antonius Pius. There were never any serious efforts to restore the republic, despite the fact that every few generations, a tyrant would emerge as emperor. Adopting a suitable son was often used to resolve succession crises, but adoption would bring its own problems for the late Roman Empire; ambitious men would ask, if anyone could be emperor, why not them? History Emperor Augustus (31 BC-14 AD) With victory over Mark Antony, it was time for Octavian, or Caesar Augustus as we can now call him, to leave his ruthlessly ambitious past behind him. Remembering that Julius Caesar had been assassinated for flaunting the power he's seized, Augustus now had every card in his hand and judiciously refrained from playing them, leaving it to his opponents to recognise his strength. He shrewdly re-established the reality of his great-uncle’s dictatorship through slow and patient incremental gains in power, while strictly maintaining a façade of Republican piety. It was his good fortune that he lived well into his seventies, reigning for forty years, in order to establish this personal autocratic rule as emperor. To prepare the population for his ascent to near godhood, Augustus had his boyhood friend Maecenas set his army of poets to the task of glorifying their patron. The culmination of the propaganda campaign was the epic poem Aeneid by Virgil (d. 19 BC), which extolled traditional Roman virtues, and legitimised the Julio-Claudian dynasty by linking the family to the very founding myth of Rome; it was one of the few great masterpieces of Latin literature. For the first few years, Augustus' position was simply Consul, often with his closest friend Agrippa, with the stated aims merely to return Rome to a state of stability and traditional legality. By 27 BC, he felt strong enough to begin working out the details of his new world order with the Senate, long since purged of any Republican sentiment. When he announced to the assembly his intention to step down as Consul, the senators tripped over themselves begging him to reconsider. With feigning reluctance, he instead accepted a ten-year term as governor of just five provinces, those that just so happened to be on the borders of the empire where 20 of the 28 legions of Rome were based. It was also at this time that the Senate granted him his official title of Augustus, or "the illustrious one", though he was generally called simply First Citizen. After 27 BC, Augustus left Rome to allow the Senate a degree of autonomy, and toured his provinces, restoring order where necessary, especially in rebellious Hispania. He was now supremely powerful in his own provinces, but left awkwardly without any true legal authority in the other provinces or Italy itself. So in 23 BC, he reached a new settlement with the Senate. He was granted two new powers: the authority to interference in any province throughout the empire; and the ability to propose or veto legislation in the Roman Senate. Now with all the powers he needed to control the Roman Empire, Augustus was smart enough never indulged in them; he rarely personally proposed or vetoed legislation, preferring instead to work behind the elected officials. Yet, Augustus implemented major reforms in how the empire was to be governed: he introduced a permanent and competent civil service at all levels of government; reformed the system of taxation; established an official communication network of new roads and relay stations; performed the first full census of the Roman people since 70 BC; and created police and fire-fighting services for Rome. These were not Augustus' only powers. He was of course enormously wealthy, having built on his massive inheritance from Julius Caesar, with the treasury of Anthony and Egypt. His fortune allowed him such luxuries as personally paying for infrastructure projects, which greatly enhanced his prestige with the people. In 23 BC, Augustus had also been granted powers usually reserved for the Roman Censor, including rather vaguely defined responsibility for maintaining public morality. These were powers that he actively indulged in, appalled at the social excesses of Rome. He passed numerous laws incentivising marriage, encouraging large families, and outlawing adultery. However, Augustus himself had a well earned reputation for as a philanderer, and his hypocritical morality laws did little to change anyone's behaviour. In 13 BC, on the death of his former Triumvirate partner Lepidus, he also assumed the role of chief priesthood of Rome. Now Augustus was the official head of the state, the military, and the church. When it came to foreign affairs, in 29 BC, Augustus ordered the closing of the doors to the Temple of Janus for the first time in over 200 years. This symbolic sign that Rome was no longer at war could not have been less appropriate. His reign was marked by virtually ceaseless military campaigns. Augustus’ first concern was Rome's relations with her most powerful neighbour, Parthian Persia. He intended to embrace a policy of mutual co-existence, but not before dealing with the troublesome buffer state of Armenia. With a large Roman army stationed in Syria, he negotiated the ousting of the pro-Parthian king of Armenia, in favour of a Roman-friendly successor. He then settled a lasting peace with Parthian Persia, which included the return of Rome's lost honour; the sacred legion standards that had been lost by Crassus some 30 years before. Having stabilised the eastern border, Augustus turned his attention to securing all the other frontiers. He plugged the glaring holes within the empire; the tribal Alps and northern Hispania. In the north, Augustus planned to settle the frontier on the naturally defensible Danube and Elbe rivers. However, while he achieved his goal with the former, conquest to the River Elbe came to a disastrous end in the Teutoburg Forest (9 AD). A treacherous allied Germanic tribe led the Romans into an ambush, and decisively destroyed three full legions; the legion numbers XVII, XVIII and XIX were never used again. In all its long history, Rome would never again seriously attempt to extend the frontier beyond the River Rhine. Although Octavian went on to live well into his 70s, his frequent illnesses meant that the question of succession to his unique position was at the forefront throughout his reign. Although he groomed numerous relatives, his search for an heir was tinged with tragedy; his sister's son died in 23 BC; his key advisor Agrippa in 12 BC; one grandson in 2 AD, another in 4 AD, and yet another was banished in 9 AD. In the end, he was succeeded by his step-son, Tiberius. Famously, on his deathbed, Augustus boasted: "I found a Rome of bricks; I leave to you one of marble." Augustus' reign laid the foundations of a regime that would lasted, in one form or another, for nearly fifteen hundred years until the fall of the Byzantine Empire in 1453. Many consider him to be the greatest Roman Emperor, but his successors would often be an object lesson in why absolute power should not be held by just one man. It was a lesson that the Romans would never learn. It's a testament to Augustus' achievement that, after the establishment of the Roman Empire, there were no serious efforts to restore the Republic. Emperor Tiberius (14-37 AD) The transition of power from Augustus to Tiberius was fraught with danger, but in the end it was pulled off without a hitch. In his early years, Tiberius continued the policies of Augustus and proved a prudent and dedicated ruler: he dealt quickly and effectively with some early minor mutinies in the legions; and tried to resolve border disputes peacefully. However, Tiberius seems to have suffered from something of a persecution complex, having been somewhat reluctantly chosen to succeed Augustus after the untimely deaths of many of his relations. His insecurity expressed itself in a bitter resentment and jealousy of his charismatic nephew Germanicus, who was hailed a hero after a series of relatively minor victories against Germanic tribes across the Rhine. The wildly popular Germanicus died of a mysterious illness in 19 AD, and on his deathbed accused Tiberius of ordering him poisoned. Whether true or not, it was widely believed. As his own popularity plummeted, Tiberius withdrew more and more from public life. He eventually withdrew from Rome completely to island of Capri, leaving the day-to-day running of the state to the head of the Praetorian Guard, Lucius Aelius Sejanus; the Praetorians were the only legion allowed to be stationed in Italy itself. The ambitious Sejanus leaned hard on Tiberius’ natural paranoia to accumulate more and more power to himself, while brutally eliminating his political rivals. Treason trials became commonplace and few members of the Roman aristocracy were safe. He even killed Tiberius’ son and heir through an elegant, if sinister, solution; he seduced his wife and convincing her to poison him. However in 31 AD, Tiberius somehow found out about Sejanus’ backstabbing scheming. After having him executed, Tiberius unleashed a campaign of denunciation and torture and execution that dwarfed anything perpetuated by Sejanus. When Tiberius finally died of old age in 37 AD, his death was welcomed in Rome with cries from the mob of "To the Tiber with Tiberius!", where the bodies of criminals were typically thrown. However, his successor Caligula would prove far worse. The Gospels mention that during Tiberius' reign, Jesus of Nazareth preached and was executed under the authority of Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor of Judea. Emperor Caligula (37-41 AD) Caligula came to power admired by everyone in Rome; not only was he the son of noble Germanicus, but he was not Tiberius. As a young child Gaius Germanicus lived on the Rhine with his father's legions, where he was often dressed in a miniature legion’s uniform, and the soldiers gave him the affectionate nickname Caligula or “little boot”. It turned out to be the only charming thing about him. During the first six-months of his reign, it seemed that things had indeed changed for the better. He threw lavish games, cancelled unpopular taxes, and granted bonuses to the legions; a dangerous precedence that would have consequences in the future. However seven-months into his reign he fell seriously ill. Although he soon recovered, many believed that it turned the young emperor towards megalomania, possibly even insanity. Caligula had spent his youth on the island of Capri toadying to Tiberius, the man who had possibly poisoned his father, and certainly murdered his mother and two brothers, so maybe the illness was not need to explain his mental instability. Although he was emperor for just 4 years, that proved long enough to mark him down as the most infamous ruler in Roman history. Stories of his cruelty, sadism, extravagance, and sexual perversity abound. The stories are probably somewhat exaggerated, but he was a certainly a debauched madman, who took everything that made Tiberius’ final years unbearable, and made them ten times worse. Inevitably in 41 AD, Caligula was assassinated by a disgruntled Praetorian Guard with backing of the Senate. Emperor Claudius (41-54 AD) The assassination of Caligula threw Rome into a brief period of political chaos. The Senate dissolved into arguments not about restoring the Republic, but rather about who among them should be the new Emperor. It was the Praetorian Guard who seized the initiative, and called it for Claudius, the uncle of Caligula. This event firmly established what would be the balance of power throughout the history of the Roman Empire; the king-makers would often be the Praetorians, other times the wider legions, and only on rare occasions the Senate which gradually became an irrelevant social club. It is a strange fact that Claudius became emperor. He was clumsy, he stammered, and he was considered a dullard; he had only survived the murderous rages of Tiberius and Caligula because he was an easy target for cruel jokes. It is stranger still that he turned out to be a good emperor. Claudius actually took an active interest in governance, something the Roman Empire had not really seen since Augustus. He made the imperial bureaucracy more efficient and responsive by adding department heads, issued measured and reasonable legal judgements, and nursed the Empire’s finances back to health after Caligula’s excesses. However, the Romans were never going to take Claudius seriously as emperor, unless he could add some impressive military victories to his name. So in 43 AD, he undertook the conquest of Britannia, a haven for rebellious Gauls and a land rich in mineral deposits such as copper, gold, iron, lead, salt, silver, and tin. Probably more important still, Claudius was following in the footsteps of the great Julius Caesar. The Celtic tribes were no match for the solid weight of a legion, advancing like a human tank. Most tribes were eager to become Roman allies, with the result that in the short space of four years the whole of southern Britain was safely under Roman control; the region from the Humber to the Severn Estuary. In addition to his conquest of Britannia, Claudius also formally annexed the client-states of Mauretania, Thrace, and Lycia. Despite his political and military successes, Claudius’ own personal life was a disaster. His first wife Messalina openly cuckolded him, leaving him little option but to have her executed. He then married his niece, Agrippina the Younger, who strove with a single-minded determination to put her own son Nero on the throne, ahead of Claudius’ own natural son. Once this was achieved, she had the old man poisoned, as well as his natural son within a few months. Emperor Nero (54-68 AD) The reign of Nero, '''the last of the Julio-Claudians, is usually associated with tyranny and extravagance, but some modern historians question the reliability of the ancient sources. His reputation has certainly been much maligned because of his zealous persecution of a then minor Jewish sect called the Christians. It's closer to the truth to say that some of his policies were good, others terrible, but all were driven by his one desperate obsession; personal popularity. The early years of Nero's reign were dominated by his mother Agrippina, but he quickly tired of his overbearing mother; she was first exiled, and later executed on the orders of her son. The years that followed were troubled by foreign enemies. In the east, Parthian Persia interfered in a dynastic struggle in the buffer state of Armenia, and a full-scale war broke out; Roman–Parthian War (58–63 AD). Early victories in the campaign lured the Romans into a false sense of security. They overreached themselves, and suffered a humiliating defeat at the Battle of Rhandeia. In the aftermath, Armenia essentially passed to Parthian control; the king of Armenia would be a Parthian prince, but required the approval of Rome. Then in 64 AD, a ferocious uprising erupted in Britannia, which would lead Nero to seriously consider just giving up on the island completely. When Boudica inherited the throne of her tribe, the patriarchal Romans refused to recognise it and annexed her territory. In response Boudica fermented a revolt amongst the British tribes, and had sacked three Roman cities, before the bulk of the legions could return from campaigning in Wales. Unfortunately for the British, when it came to set-piece battles, the Romans were second to none, even when outnumbered ten to one; at the Battle of Watling Street (61 AD) the rebellion was shattered. The second half of his reign brought problems that of Nero’s own doing. The competent senior bureaucrats that had been appointed by Claudius began to retired. Released from their moderating influence, Nero’s policies turned towards unsustainable extravagance. Then in 64 AD, the Great Fire of Rome caused widespread devastation in the city. In its aftermath, Nero built a palatial palace complex in the heart of the city, leading many to believe that Nero himself had caused the blaze; according to a well-known myth, Nero fiddled as Rome burned. Nero himself made a scapegoat of the Christian community in Rome, embarking on their persecution with a cruel zeal that horrified the masses. To add to Nero’s woes, in the volatile province of Palestine, the Great Jewish Revolt (66-73 AD) broke out. It erupted when the Roman governor tried to claim the money in the Great Temple of Jerusalem as taxes. The local Roman garrisons were quickly overrun and brutally slaughtered. However, the Romans dispatched the experienced general Titus Flavius Vespasian to restore order; the later Emperor Vespasian. He set about systematically subduing Palestine, prompting the Jewish resistance in Jerusalem to internally fractured into bitter infighting. The Romans besieged and subdued Jerusalem in 70 AD, but the mopping up of resistance continued for another two years; most famously at the siege and eventual mass suicide of the Zealots at Masada. Back in Rome, by 68 AD the city had had enough of Nero. Servius Sulpicius Galba, the wise and experienced governor of Hispania, became a rallying point for the emperor's enemies. When Nero ordered Galba arrested, the Praetorian Guard abandoned him, and Nero was forced to flee the city; he committed suicide in exile. Year of the Four Emperors (69 AD) With no living male heir, the death of Nero marked the end of the Julio-Claudian Dynasty, and would usher in a brief period of chaotic uncertainty; the '''Year of the Four Emperors. There was simply no mechanism to determine which of a dozens of highly ambitious men ought to be emperor. The most important power upon which the emperor’s authority rested was his command over the legions, and 69 AD can best be understood as a competition between the leading regional generals of the time. On Nero's death, Servius Sulpicius Galba was immediately recognized as emperor, but he did not remain popular for long. He was a wise and experienced general, but was also completely lacking in political savvy. On his march from Spain to Rome, regional governors who did not immediately offer him their full-throated support, were rounded up with their families and executed. In Rome, Galba quickly began tackling the crisis that Nero had left in the state’s finances, but since he was already an old man the problem of succession immediately came to the fore. Galba adopted as his heir a level-headed young Senator, which naturally thwarted the ambition of many. One, an ambitious and greedy general called Marcus Salvius Otho, was willing to turn to extreme measures. He bribed the Praetorians to assassinate Galba and within hours of the coup was recognised as emperor. Meanwhile, the legions on the Rhine were in revolt; it had begun against Galba, but saw no reason to stop now. Their leader Aulus Vitelliu'''s marched on Rome with some of the finest veterans legions in the empire. Otho was quickly overthrown and now Vitellius recognized as Emperor. However, his support was thin, and his enemies naturally turned to the most popular general of his day, '''Titus Flavius Vespasian; the general who had successfully suppressed the uprising in Palestine. Vespasian heeded the call of practically the whole of the eastern empire, and marched on Italy while Vitellius’ troops were still drunk on victory. It would be a bloody end to a bloody year. Rome was taken by force, and the army ran amuck in the streets for weeks, before Vespasian himself arrived in the city and restored order. With Emperor Vespasian, as it turned out, the Year of the Four Emperors had made a fine choice. Emperor Vespasian (69-79 AD) After the chaos of Year of the Four Emperors, Vespasian was the ideal man to rebuild Rome's confidence and to replenish her treasury, through his tough and sensible policies. Vespasian’s sound fiscal measures were so successful that he was able to plough a surplus into public works in Rome and the provinces. His crowning achievement was the dismantling of Nero’s ostentatious palace and building of the great Colosseum Amphitheatre of Rome. Another realm that Vespasian excelled at was propaganda. He patronised scholars and the arts to restore public respect for imperial authority, by harping continually on one message; that Vespasian was the one who put the dark days of civil war behind Rome, and restored peace. He also endeared himself to the people by his unpretentious charm and simple lifestyle, which contrasted sharply with the frequent megalomania of the Julio-Claudians. Vespasian’s decade in office was largely one of peace at home and abroad, and he was the first emperor since Tiberius to die of natural causes at the age of sixty-nine. Emperor Titus (79–81 AD) Vespasian’s eldest son Titus had been groomed for years to succeed as emperor, and his father died believing that he was handing power over to a capable man who would rule for many years. Alas, it was not to be. During his brief two year reign, he was every bit as self-confident as his father, leading to the same kind of pragmatic moderation in his rule. Two disasters befell the Romans in this period: the eruption of Mount Vesuvius destroyed Pompeii in 79 AD; and Rome suffers another major fire in 80. In both cases, Titus was quick to set the full weight of the imperial treasury to the relief effort, clean-up and reconstruction. Alas, Titus would die of a fever at the age of just 41. Emperor Domitian (81-96 AD) With no heir, Titus’ younger brother Domitian was pronounced emperor. In his youth, he was in the capital throughout the Year of the Four Emperors, and had seen first-hand how readily the Senate swung with the political breeze. As a consequence on becoming emperor, Domitian did everything he could to enfeeble the Senate, and concentrate all political power firmly in the imperial palace, as something of an Enlightened despot. Titus visited the provinces more than any emperor since Augustus, and it was clearly understood that power resided in the imperial court that went with him. Domitian set the stage in many ways for the coming century of brilliance for the Roman Empire: the Roman currency was stabilised; tax codes were streamlined; corrupt officials prosecuted; and people were promoted on merit to the detriment of the Senatorial aristocracy. When it came to military affairs, the legacy of Domitian was defensive in nature; a vast network of roads, forts, and watchtowers were constructed along the Rhine and Danube rivers. The hawkish Senators were appalled. In the second half of his reign, Domitian grew more paranoid, after a relatively minor revolt among the legions along the Rhine in 89 AD. He reinstated the treason trials. However, his paranoid disposition would become a self-fulfilling prophecy. In 96 AD, Domitian was stabbed to death by a court official, although who else was involved remains unclear. On his death, the Senate ordered his statues toppled and damned his name. Historians often focus just on the so-called Five Good Emperors starting with Nerva for two reasons. Firstly, Domitian was much maligned by the Roman historians as a tyrant; Roman historians were often Senators. However, in reality he executed no more men than cuddly old Emperor Claudius and his reputation has been re-evaluated by modern historians like Brian W. Jones; he was ruthless with his opponents, but an effective autocrat. The other reason is that all the successful emperors from Trajan to Antonius Pius were adopted sons, which the disastrous Commodus was a natural son. While there are obvious benefits in choosing a capable successor by adoption, adoption would bring its own problems for the late Roman Empire; ambitious men would inevitably ask, if anyone could be emperor, why not them? Emperor Nerva (96-98 AD) The sudden murder of Domitian threatened to open the door to another period of bitter civil war, but the Senate moved quickly to announce Marcus Nerva as his successor. The transition of power was eased somewhat by the fact that: he had been an imperial advisor to Vespasian, Titus, and Domitian; and also, since Nerva was sixty-five and childless, ambitious men had reason to hope to soon succeed him. He seemed the perfect stop-gap, but all was not well with the two other groups that had grown accustomed to having the final word on succession, the Praetorian Guard and the legions. The tensions came to a head in 97 AD, when the Praetorians laid siege to the imperial palace, and briefly took Nerva hostage. Realizing that his position as emperor was becoming untenable without the support of an acceptable heir, Nerva suddenly announced that he was adopting Trajan, the most popular and accomplished general of his day. Just a few months later, Nerva died of a stroke. However his personal legacy was assured, for his heir would turn out to be arguably the greatest emperor in Roman history, after Augustus. Emperor Trajan (98–117 AD) Trajan was been born in Hispania, which makes him the first Roman Emperor from the provinces. He had come to prominence in the legions as a natural military leader, and later a competent governor. Trajan brought an easy going authority to the imperial palace. He did not share power in any meaningful way with the Senate, but at least he consulted and showed respect to the proud Senators. He also ended the micro-management of the provinces that Domitian had introduced; instead trusting in the sound judgement of local governors. He had his own reasons to delegate some power, for he would spend much of his reign expanding the Roman Empire to its greatest territorial extent. The emperor’s first war was in the troublesome kingdom of Dacia, north of the Danube bordering the Black Sea. Trajan prepared for his invasion with the kind of meticulous planning not seen since Julius Caesar: he reorganised the legions so border security would not suffer during his campaign; and expanded the road network to secure his supply-lines. In 101 AD, Trajan personally led the legions across the Danube, but the Dacians proved a stubborn enemy. In the end of this first campaign, he settled on reducing it to a client-state. Following the first war, the Dacians complied with Rome for a time, but soon returned to harassing the frontier. In preparation from a second campaign, Trajan ordered the construction of the first permanent bridge over the Danube; it would remain the longest bridge built by man for a thousand years. In 105, he took to the field again, driving for the capital in a three pronged attack. When a full frontal assault on the city failed, Trajan turned to cunning, cutting-off its water supply and eventually forcing the Dacians to surrender. Dacia became the last major province to be added to the empire. For years to come, the Romans would fund all their dreams from the rich gold mines of the province. Trajan was a prolific builder, constructing infrastructure projects such as baths and aqueducts all over Italy and the provinces, to enhance the material lives of the Roman people. The centrepiece of his public works was Rome's largest public space, the Forum of Trajan, which has at its heart the 30-metre-high marble Trajan’s Column commemorating the conquest in Dacia. In 113, at the age of sixty, Trajan embarked on his last war; Trajan's Parthian War (115-117 AD). The pretext for war was that Parthian Persia had violated its treaty with Rome by interfering in the internal affairs of the buffer state of Armenia. Trajan easily conquered Armenia, formally annexing it as a Roman province. Although, the purpose of the campaign had been achieved, Trajan pressed on into Persia itself. In just two years, he carved out a huge portion of the Parthian Empire from the Caspian Sea to the Persian Gulf. In 117, Trajan was on his way back to Rome, when he suffered a stroke and died. On his death, he was deified by the Senate and his ashes were laid to rest beneath Trajan's Column. Every new emperor after him would be honoured by the Senate with the wish: "may he be luckier than Augustus and better than Trajan" Emperor Hadrian (117-138 AD) There was a seamless transition from Trajan to his nephew Hadrian, although it has been widely speculated that Trajan died without nominating an heir, and it was his wife Plotina who orchestrated the succession lest the empire descend into civil war. Nonetheless, Hadrian was a fine choice; a former Consul and provincial governor, with ample military experience at the highest level. Hadrian's reign was in marked contract to Trajan’s, largely focused on the defence of the empire's vast territories. Hadrian quickly abandoned Mesopotamia, considering it to be indefensible, and restored the Euphrates as Rome's eastern border. It’s a testament to his political skill that he was able to make such an unpopular decision. Hadrian spent more than half his reign touring the provinces, restoring discipline to the legions, upgrading defences, and donating money for infrastructure improvements. In Britannia, where the Romans now controlled the whole island except Scotland, he ordered the construction of what would become the defining artefact of his reign; the seventy mile long Hadrian's Wall. Nevertheless, Trajan's policy of strengthening the outlying areas of empire would have disastrous result in Palestine. He ordered a massive reconstruction program in the much trouble region in the Greco-Roman style. On the ruined Temple Mount, he proposed a shrine to Jupiter. Jewish opposition to this sacrilege triggered the brutal Third Jewish War (132–136 AD). The Jewish rebels fought a guerilla war that easily overran the local legions, and in the end, it took twelve full legions to finally crush the revolt. It was a bitter campaign, fought village by village throughout the region, causing such devastation to the Jewish communities that some modern scholars have described it as genocide. The later years of Hadrian’s reign saw his temper grow shorted, and a marked increase in treason trials. His enemies in the Senate were quick to label him a tyrant; the hawkish aristocracy had always resented Hadrian’s refusal to expand the frontiers, as well as his fondness for all things Greek, including an indiscrete relationship with a young man called Antinous. Hadrian died at the age of 62 of heart failure. Emperor Antoninus Pius (138-161 AD) Before his death, Hadrian had announced to a shocked Rome that he was adopting as his heir the relatively obscure Antoninus Pius, a man who’d spent his entire career in the Senate. The years of Antoninus Pius would prove the most harmonious in the history of the Roman Empire. At peace at home and abroad, it has often been called Golden Age of Imperial Rome. Trade and commerce flourished and his strict control of finances allowed for a state surplus by the time of his death. Antoninus was deeply conservative and emphasised continuity over novelty in all things, none more so than his attitude to public-works; he more or less abandoned new construction, and focused on maintaining the existent, especially roads. Nonetheless, his reputations never suffered from his public tight-fistedness because he was generous with his own personal fortune; underwriting the emergency relief to natural disasters from his own pocket. He also codified the rules for how slaves should be treated, such as the punishment of a master for killing a slave; a long overdue law since the days of acquiring new slaves through conquest were largely over after Trajan. Antoninus’ glowing reputation is dulled somewhat by what Rome endured following his death. With no military experience, he allowed a sense of complacency to set in among the legions. He also ineffectually dealt with then minor problems that would become crises for his successors. His steadfast refusal to admit new client kingdoms, led to resentment by those on the outs. Emperor Marcus Aurelius (161-180 AD) Marcus Aurelius had been adopted by Antoninus Pius at the far-seeing insistence of Hadrian. Being groomed from an early age to be emperor may have gone to the head of another man, but at a young age Marcus was already showing signs of the Stoic character that would come to define him. On the death of Antoninus Pius, Marcus Aurelius insisted on ruling jointly with his younger brother Lucius; the first man to understand what later Romans would take for granted, that one man cannot govern the whole of the Mediterranean by himself. For the scholarly, introspective Marcus Aurelius, his reign would prove to be one of near constant war, plague and disaster. The peace was immediately shattered by renewed aggression from Parthian Persia, who led their armies into Armenia and dared the Romans to do anything about it; the Roman–Parthian War (161–166). When the initial local response proved disastrous, co-emperor Lucius took personal command; though he relied heavily on capable generals. In a well-planned campaign, the Romans quickly drove off the Parthians from Armenia, then pressed on into Persia and sacked her capital. In the aftermath, peace was agreed with Armenia remaining a Roman province. Yet, it would prove a hollow victory. The armies brought back with them from the east the plague, probably smallpox. It would wreak havoc in the legions and the public at large for the next decade; even killing Marcus' brother Lucius in 169 AD. For years, the Rhine and Danube frontiers of the empire had attracted Germanic tribes, in order to trade with Rome and to occasionally raid. Until the reign of Marcus Aurelius, the Roman had easily dealt with the Germanic tribes, through a policy of divide-and-conquer, playing one tribe against another. However, over time the Germanic tribes learned to adapt their own strategy; unifying of the into larger and larger alliances. In 166 AD, the Roman legions on the Danube, weakened by plague, were beset with raids on multiple fronts; one raid reached almost as far as Athens, and another even besieged Aquileia in the north of the Italian peninsula. It would take nine years for Marcus Aurelius to eventually stabalise the frontier again, through a combination of negotiating peace with individual Germanic tribes and genocidal purges of others. The emperor may have campaigned further on the Danube, but for a usurper. In 175 AD, the general Avidius Cassius was proclaimed Roman emperor in the east, after receiving the erroneous news that Marcus Aurelius was dead. When it became clear that the emperor was still alive, the rebellion quickly fizzled out, and Cassius was killed by his own troops. In 178 AD, the emperor was able to return to the Danube front, where the legions were again being harried, with another new strategy by the Germanic tribes; a demoralising guerilla war. Marcus Aurelius died at the front in 180 AD. He was succeeded by his own natural son, Commodus, in a break from a recent Roman tradition of adoption. Commodus' disastrous reign would usher in an era of crisis for the Roman Empire. Roman Achievement If the Ancient Greek contribution to civilisation was essentially mental and spiritual, that of Rome was structural and practical; its essence was the empire itself. Within the frontiers there was order and peace as never before, and a common culture whose spread was made easier by the new swiftness of communication along the roads. The Romans were great admirers of the Greeks, and in most areas of learning and the arts Roman thinkers only provided again what Greeks had already done better. Only in two practical fields were the Romans to be great innovators: law and engineering. Roman Law formed an important basis for European law all the way down to Napoléon’s legal code of 1804 AD. All around the western Mediterranean shores and across wide tracts of western Europe, the Balkans and Asia Minor, relics can still be seen of the engineering achievements the empire of Rome, not least their great works of hydraulic engineering, bridging and road-building. Birth of Christianity At some time around 33 AD, the Roman Governor of the province of Palestine reluctantly authorised the death by crucifixion of a Jewish religious agitator in Jerusalem; Jesus of Nazareth. No trace of the life of Jesus survives in any historical record, other than what was recorded in the four Gospels, for he was an obscure preacher in his own time. Nevertheless, there is little doubt that the historical person of Jesus actually existed. He was probably born in about 6 BC; Herod died in 4 BC and there is some evidence of a Roman census in Palestine in 6 BC. The ministry of Jesus began when he was baptized by John the Baptist, an event which Luke placed in the 15th year of the reign of Tiberius or 29 AD. Jesus was remarkably charismatic, attracting a small but incredibly loyal group of followers in Galilee, due to his apparent ability to work miracles particularly of healing, as well as regular companions, his disciples. His message was particularly resonant to the poor and downtrodden, and pretty radical in its anti-authoritarian stance. The arrival of Jesus and his enthusiastic followers in Jerusalem just before the festival of Passover would certainly have been alarming to the Roman authorities. Galilee was a known centre of resistance to Roman authority, and Jesus had also been critical of the Jewish authorities. Jesus' actions did little to reassure them, especially when he smashed the stalls of the traders outside the Temple. It was inevitably that he would have been arrested and punished. He was supposedly charged with claiming to be the King of the Jews, a political affront to the Romans and a religious one to the Jews. With some reluctance, Pontius Pilate condemns him to crucifixion, a form of Roman execution reserved for agitators, pirates and slaves. With the details of his resurrected from the dead three day after the crucifixion, the Gospel account of Jesus became the story of the Christians. To his energetic follower’s, Jesus had been Christ the Messiah, the son of God, who would return some day to redeem the world. St. Peter emerged as the de-facto leader of this small Christian community. The preaching of the good news soon brought the Christians their first martyr, when St. Stephen was dragged outside the walls of Jerusalem and stoned to death. One of the witnesses of Stephen's violent death was a keen upholder of Jewish orthodoxy, Saul of Tarsus; more familiar to history as St. Paul. After his dramatic conversion, he became the first great Christian missionary; as a Roman Citizen, St. Paul could travel throughout the Roman world. The early Christians were all Jews, but in Anatolia and Greece, he introduced a startling new element to Christianity by converting people of non-Jewish descent. The issue was eventually discussed at a gathering of the leaders of the early church in Jerusalem in about the year 50 AB. Both St. Peter and St. Paul were in favour of relaxing the requirements for Gentiles, and their arguments carry the day; circumcision would no longer be compulsory to be a Christian. It was a turning point for the growing Christian Church, and is arguably the central reason that Christianity could become a world religion, instead of just a sect of Judaism. In about 55 AD, St Paul returned to Jerusalem, where he was assaulted by hostile Jews in the Temple. He was rescued by the Roman authorities, and eventually transported to Rome to appeal to the Emperor. The Gossips strangely make no mention of the result of the legal process against Paul or any mention of his death, although early Christian tradition states that both St. Paul and St. Peter met their deaths in Rome during the 60s, becoming the two Saints most associated with the city and underpinning the subsequent status of the papacy. Nevertheless, only some forty years after the death of Jesus, Christians were sufficiently numerous in the capital of the Roman Empire to attract persecution during the reign of Emperor Nero. While Christians were often persecuted, the religion continued to slowly grow until the Emperor Constantine declared religious tolerance for the worship of Jesus in the Roman Empire, and eventually converted to Christianity himself. Category:Historical Periods